The Cobalt SP 800 has been developed and built in collaboration with the Monmouthshire-based machinery supplier’s Chinese partner for wide-format and label printers, Antel Holding based in Guangzhou.
There are three resolutions with printing speeds up to 32m/min at 1,200x300dpi, 16m/min at 1,200x600 dpi, and 8m/min at 1,200x1,200dpi. The printing width is 800mm and the maximum media height is 200mm.
An HP FI1000 inkjet printhead is used to achieve the quality and productivity in a single-pass design.
The printer colour set is CMYK, using fast-drying, water-based ink that IGS said is environmentally friendly and waterproof immediately after printing, giving “outstanding print receptivity and ink adhesion”.
The ink has food contact compliance, making it suitable for food packaging such as pizza boxes, bagasse clam shell boxes, and napkins.
Media transport for both rigid, flexible, and precut substrates is via belts which are assisted by a vacuum system to keep the media in place throughout the feed-in, imaging and output stages, and further complemented by a cleaner/ioniser to remove dust that might clog printheads from the substrate before it passes under the printheads.
The infrared sensors built into the Cobalt SP 800 are said to ensure “exceptional accuracy” no matter what the size or shape of the product being printed.
IGS managing director Peter Flynn said: "We’re excited to be bringing our technology to a whole new market. Our target is to offer an attractive price point of £49,000 which includes delivery, installation with a twelve-month warranty to commercial, packaging printers and label converters to diversify their offering in the short-run packaging and POS arena.
“Printing for as low as £0.05 per square metre with the Cobalt SP 800 you’ll get higher productivity, reliable uptime and production efficiencies that will drive more profits to the bottom line.”
Separately, during November IGS has installed an additional two Titanium cutters to existing users.
Nottingham-based large-format graphics and litho printer Hickling & Squires has purchased a Titanium 3121 cutting table to complement its existing Titanium 2516 with router.
“Production director Jamie Gilbert said: “The Titanium 3121 investment was made to boost productivity for our short-run packaging. We purchased the IGS packaging software in September and this has enabled us to offer an increasingly wide range of packaging and POS designs to existing and new customers.”
Fleetwood-based large-format graphics business Colour Banners, meanwhile, has also taken on its second Titanium cutter.
Its purchase of the new Titanium 2516 with router was driven from the need to increase production capacity, having exhibited at several successful trade shows both in the UK and Europe this year.
Mark Abbot, owner of Colour Banners, said: “We initially put our neck on the block with our first Titanium cutter in 2019 as the Titanium product range was new to the market.
“Since that very first day we have never looked back – our Titanium 3032 with router enabled us to achieve larger print runs, more intricate cutting and it also enabled us to become more efficient and therefore cost effective.”
